


scream to the stars 'we have survived' (and whisper it to each other)

by ShadowSpires



Series: Don't Look Back [2]
Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, M/M, Order 66-adjacent angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:00:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23555716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowSpires/pseuds/ShadowSpires
Summary: The touch is almost too gentle to be felt, so careful it’s almost ticklish, especially curving along the vulnerable expanse of his stomach, below the protective cage of his ribs.“I really am okay, Cody,” Obi-Wan says, slowly cracking open his eyes. The touch vanishes, Cody snatching his hand away, turning his head aside, shame bleeding all over his face and his presence in the Force.
Relationships: CC-2224 | Cody/Obi-Wan Kenobi
Series: Don't Look Back [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1695373
Comments: 5
Kudos: 246





	scream to the stars 'we have survived' (and whisper it to each other)

**Author's Note:**

> SPOILERS for future chapters of Nothing Left to Lose!!!  
> SPOILERS  
> SPOILERS  
> SPOILERS!!!!  
> Okay, at this point you've been warned, carry on at your own risk.

Thank you!!! *hands out birthday cake*  
  
Sounds good to me, lol, I’m a huge sucker for Codywan. How about … something much later on in the [Nothing Left to Lose](https://shadow-spires.tumblr.com/post/190944275574/nothing-left-to-lose-chapter-1) Verse?

For the [Birthday Prompt Post](https://shadow-spires.tumblr.com/post/614820214101688320/birthday-pressies), leading to the [Birthday Prompt Masterlist](https://shadow-spires.tumblr.com/post/614880367205285888/birthday-prompts-2020-masterlist). 

Also available on AO3. 

Edit: holy shit this one got away from me, lol, enjoy. 

~~~

The touch is almost too gentle to be felt, so careful it’s almost ticklish, especially curving along the vulnerable expanse of his stomach, below the protective cage of his ribs. Vulnerable, Obi-Wan muses, humans are so _vulnerable_ , soft skin and delicate organs with no inherent protection. 

The broad, raised scar being traced so delicately by blaster-calloused fingers is more proof of that vulnerability than he ever personally needed, to be honest, even if the wound was, by his estimation, functionally the equivalent of an _accident._

“I really am okay, Cody,” Obi-Wan says, slowly cracking open his eyes. The touch _vanishes,_ Cody snatching his hand away, turning his head aside, _shame_ bleeding all over his face and his presence in the Force. 

Obi-Wan sighs, deeply, and reaches out, not demanding, but offering his hand. 

Cody has every right, every _welcome_ to touch him. Even there. Especially there. Obi-Wan just wishes he didn’t _ache_ so much over it. 

“Cyare,” the Jedi says quietly, when Cody keeps looking away from him. “Cody. It’s done. It wasn’t your fault.”  
  
There is a stiffening of Cody’s shoulders, and Obi-Wan _hurts_ for him. How many times have they had this conversation? They’ve had it quietly, shouted it, _refused_ to speak about it. 

Obi-Wan doesn’t know what other arguments he can bring to the table here. He tried insisting that being _mind controlled_ absolved him of all responsibility. He tried insisting that even _under that mind control_ trying to take out a Jedi with _one_ long range blast from the only canon on the battlefield that was known to have a targeting problem – that didn’t even _hit_ him – was proof that even if he’d _been_ at all culpable, at all capable of control, he’d used that to save Obi-Wan’s life. He’d tried the fact that _no one_ could have anticipated him hitting the sharp edge of that scrapped droid just like _that_. He’d tried the fact that it was _healed._ He was _fine,_ there hadn’t even been any long-term consequences. None of it took away that stressed, guilty look in Cody’s eyes whenever he was allowed to linger too long on the most visible consequences of that day.  
  
The Negotiator, stumped. He doesn’t think Cody will appreciate the humor of that right now.

Obi-Wan doesn’t push, doesn’t move, just leaves the offer open, and slowly Cody’s shoulders unknit, his breath coming easier. 

“You’ve made your opinion clear, Obi-Wan,” Cody says, finally, covering his eyes with a hand. “And I know… I _know_. But it still… _I still did that to you._ My body, my words, my orders. I still _remember_ ordering it. I still remember waking from it, trying to find you, and not finding anything but your robes, covered in _too much blood._ It felt like _me.”  
_  
Obi-Wan chokes down the response that it _wasn’t_ him. Their bodily autonomy was something sacred. Obi-Wan wouldn’t argue against his perception of self for _anything_. 

He just… listens, offers his presence and his silence, continues to offer his hand, until Cody manages to tuck away those memories again, one bitter shard at a time, and Obi-Wan wishes so _desperately_ he could fight this battle for him, but he can’t. All he can do is be here, offer him his support, until he finally reaches out, lays his hand in Obi-Wan’s, dark skin against pale. 

Obi-Wan closes his fingers slowly around Cody’s draws him back to lay against him in their bed, fingers of his other hand trailing over strong shoulders as Cody sighs and relaxes by increments. 

Cody’s skin is darker now than it ever was when they all still belonged to the Republic, confined in ships, always in battle, always in armor. He knows – with the kind of fierce pleasure he regards all the ways his men are _finding_ themselves – that Cody enjoys, now, working under the full-spectrum lights of the starboard gardens, the light sinking into and darkening his skin as he takes time between his duties to coax small green things out of the soil. He’s _dismal_ at it, by any gardener’s judgment, but Obi-Wan suspects that’s at least half his terrifyingly competent beloved’s deliberate _choice_. The _ability_ to be _bad_ at something and have that be _okay_ is something so many of the _vode_ still struggle at. 

It’s one more of _so many_ little signs of the man his commander, his friend, his lover, his beloved, is growing into, free now of the restrictions of the GAR, of the constant expectation that these things are _not for him._   
  
He is still a soldier in so many ways. They all are. They still struggle and fight, work every day against the Empire that took the place of the Republic, but… they are allowed to be _so much more_ than just soldiers, and Obi-Wan is _so happy,_ happier than he ever thought he could be.

He knows Cody is too. Feels it in the intimate press of their minds together, in the soft line of his smile when he watches the cadets, the _vode'ika_ , their growth so _slow_ now to clone eyes, playing in the creche with the initiates. In the fierce satisfaction he brings to the battlefield whenever they fight side-by-side for no one but themselves and their own choices. 

In the laughing press of his body against Obi-Wan’s when he crowds him up against the wall in the hallway, ignoring the playful jeers of his vode with as much practice as Obi-Wan does the amused brush of his fellows Jedi’s presences as Cody coaxes him into abandoning the rest of their work for the day and finding a private corner, or watching a holovid in their quarters, or reading a book for nothing more than the pure pleasure of time spent together. 

In the way that Cody, now, here and pressed half above him half against his side, can be so boneless against him, so relaxed, lips pressing softly against his shoulder. Not a prelude to anything, not now, just uncomplicated affection that makes Obi-Wan’s heart _sing._

He doesn’t say anything when Cody brings his free hand back to press against the deep scar on his stomach, the one that nearly spilled all those delicate organs all over the Utapauan landscape. The one that _didn’t,_ that is healed, and as strong as any part of him.   
  
  
Eventually, all wounds heal. His have. Cody’s will as well. 

  
  
They have all the time they need, now. 


End file.
